Lemmie Quinn, foreman, who testified that he visited the factory and talked to Mr. Frank just after Mary Phagan is supposed to have left with her pay envelope. He was given a searching examination by the coroner Thursday, but stuck to his statement.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Thursday, May 8^th, 1913

Lemmie Quinn, the Factory Foreman, Was Put Through a Grilling Examination, but He Steadily Maintained That He Visited the Factory Shortly After the Time Mary Phagan is Supposed to Have Left With Her Pay Envelope

FRANK’S TREATMENT OF GIRLS IN FACTORY DESCRIBED AS UNIMPEACHABLE BY ONE YOUNG LADY EMPLOYEE

Mr. Frank’s Manner at the Time He Was Informed of the Tragedy by Officers at His Home on Sunday Morning is Told of by Former Policeman — Both Frank and the Negro Night Watchman Are Expected to Testify During Afternoon, When Inquest Will Be Concluded

The coroner’s inquest into the mysterious murder of Mary Phagan adjourned at 12:55 o’clock Thursday to meet again at 2:30. At the hour of adjournment, six witnesses had testified. They were “Boots” Rogers, former county policeman; Lemmie Quinn, foreman of the pencil factory; Miss Corinthia Hall, an employee of the factory; Miss Hattie Hall, stenographer; J. L. Watkins and Miss Daisy Jones. L. M. Frank and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, were both present at headquarters during the morning session, but neither had been recalled to the stand when recess was ordered. Both are expected to testify during the afternoon, when an effort will be made to conclude the inquest and return a verdict.

Though put through a searching examination by the coroner in an effort to break down his statement that he had visited the factory on the day of the tragedy shortly after noon just after Mary Phagan is supposed to have received her pay envelope and left, Quinn stuck to his story. He declared that he had recalled his visit to Mr. Frank, and that Mr. Frank told him he was going to communicate the fact to his lawyers.

“Boots” Rogers testified that Mr. Frank had changed the tape in the time clock while the officers were in the factory Sunday morning after the body of Mary Phagan had been found, and that he stated at the time that the sheet he took from the clock seemed to be correct. Rogers also described Mr. Frank’s manner when the officers went to his home in an automobile to take him to the factory Sunday morning.

Miss Daisy Jones, who was mistaken for Mary Phagan by J. L. Watkins. She was a witness before the coroner Thursday. G. W. Epps, the boy who came to town with Mary Phagan on the day of the tragedy and left her on her way to the factory [right].

Miss Corinthia Hall, an employee in the factory, testified that Mr. Frank’s treatment of the girls in the factory was unimpeachable. She also testified that she had met Lemmie Quinn at a restaurant near the factory near the noon hour Saturday, her statement being confirmatory of his visit to the factory on the fatal day. J. L. Watkins testified that he had mistaken Miss Daisy Jones for Mary Phagan when he thought he saw Mary on the street near her home on Saturday afternoon about 5 o’clock. Miss Jones testimony was also in this connection.

NEW WITNESSES CALLED.

Following a conference between Solicitor General Dorsey, Assistant Solicitor General Stephens and Chief of Detectives Lanford, just after the inquest recessed for lunch, it was learned that Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee would be recalled at the afternoon session and that there would be the following new witnesses: Miss Alice Wood, of 8 Corput street; Miss Nellie Pitts, of 9 Oliver street, and Mrs. C. D. Dunnegan [sic], of 165 West Fourteenth street.

Rogers Describes Mr. Frank’s Manner When Told of Tragedy

“Boots” Rogers, formerly a county policeman, was the first witness. Mr. Rogers said that he lived at 100 McDonough road. He was at the police station at 3 o’clock on the morning of April 27, he said, when a call came from the factory of the National Pencil company. The officers responded to the call in his automobile, he declared. Those who went with him were Police Sergeants Brown and Dobbs, Call Officer Anderson and Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter.

Mr. Craig was the first person to enter the basement, the witness said. He (Mr. Rogers) entered second; Dobbs and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, bringing up the rear. All saw the body about the same time, Mr. Rogers said.

George W. Epps

The witness said that the girl’s body was lying face down, with the hands folded beneath the body. The body was turned over by Police Sergeant Dobbs, he said.

Rogers continued that they found two notes near the body. The first note, found by Sergeant Dobbs, was on white scratch paper and on a tablet lying face down. The sheet with the note on it was detached and fell off when the tablet was picked up. It was lying about a foot from the body’s right shoulder. Another note was found later, written on a yellow order blank of the factory, lying about a foot from the feet of the body. Rogers wasn’t sure whether he or Sergeant Dobbs noticed that first. He didn’t notice a sharpened pencil nearby. There were a number of stubs, but none sharpened that he saw.

Asked “Who telephoned Mr. Frank that the girl was dead?” he said no one did as nearly as he remembered—that Detective Starnes telephoned Mr. Frank later in the morning to come down to the factory.

About two or three minutes after the first officers arrived with him, said Rogers, they were admitted to the factory. They saw the negro night watchman, Newt Leet, through the glass door, coming down the stairs with his lantern.

“She’s down in the basement—she’s down in the basement,” Rogers aid the negro told them first. He showed them the way down, indicating the trap door and the ladder. Britt Craig, a newspaper man, went first, and was followed by the witness, then by Sergeant Dobbs of the police, and last by the negro.

Everything was in gloom, though a gas jet was burning dimly at the foot of the ladder.

NEGRO WASN’T EXCITED.

“Look out, white folks, you’ll step on her,” the witness said the negro exclaimed when they started toward the rear of the basement. The negro took the lead then, with his lantern, and led them to the body. The negro’s manner was as cool as that of a man would be under the circumstances, said the witness. The negro wasn’t excited. “He was being questioned by all of us,” said the witness. He answered questions promptly.

“How did you happen to find the body?” the witness said was one of the questions put to the negro. He repeated the negro’s answer—of how he was making his rounds, and entered the basement, and by the dim rays of his lantern noticed a suspicious looking object on the ground near the back. “Somebody’s put that there to try to scare me,” the negro said he remarked to himself, going over to see closer. The body was revealed and he hurried back upstairs to telephone the police.

BODY FOUND FACE DOWN.

The witness said that Sergeant Dobbs asked the negro how the body was lying when he found it. The negro’s answer was “on its face.” “Did you turn it over?” the negro was asked; and answered “no sir, I didn’t touch it.”

This point of the evidence was in conflict with previous testimony by the negro himself, who swore at the inquest that when he found the body it was lying on its back face up, with its head toward the back door—exactly the reverse of the position in which the officers found it.

Rogers, the witness, said that the body was lying on its face, hand folded beneath it, when he and the officers first saw it. The negro stuck to the same story while answering all the questions, said the witness. After about ten minutes Sergeant Dobbs ordered that the negro be held under arrest. The negro was taken upstairs by Call Officer Anderson. The rest of them looked around for the girl’s left shoe, which was missing from the body.

Officer Anderson and the negro went upstairs first alone. Twenty or thirty minutes later the witness went up and found the officer and the negro sitting in the office. Anderson was trying to telephone to some of “the factory folks,” said the witness. The negro was sitting nearby in silence. Some one suggested that the officer telephoned to Mr. Frank, the superintendent, at his home. Anderson tried to get Mr. Frank’s number. There was no answer. Anderson talked to the operator, and told her something very serious had happened and that the call was urgent; and Anderson said he heard the persistent ringing that followed.

IDENTIFIED AS MARY PHAGAN.

While he and Sergeant Dobbs had been moving about downstairs, looking for the girl’s shoes, said Rogers, they found the staple on the back door pulled, and pushed the door back and went out into the alley, searching it to Hunter street for some clue. Rogers then went away to find some one to identify the body, said he. The shoe was found by somebody else later. He went to 100 McDonough road, said he, to get Miss Grace Hix, a relative of his own, whom he knew to be employed in the factory. He brought Miss Hix back with him in the automobile, and she identified the body as that of Mary Phagan. Miss Hix sought first to telephone to Mary’s mother, Mrs. J. W. Coleman, but there was no phone in the Coleman home, so she telephoned instead to the home of another girl, Miss Ferguson, and got Mrs. Ferguson, and asked her to go over and break the news to Mrs. Coleman.

MR. FRANK NOTIFIED.

Mr. Rogers said that Detective Starnes, who had been summoned to the factory, called Mr. Frank over the telephone shortly after 6 o’clock. The witness said that he drove Detective Black to Mr. Frank’s home, and that Mrs. Frank, wearing a heavy bathrobe, came to the door. He said that Mr. Frank stood in the hall, fully dressed except his collar and tie.

The witness said that Mr. Frank appeared nervous and excited and asked whether the night watchman had reported to the police that something had happened at the factory. Mr. Rogers said that neither he nor Mr. Black answered.

The witness said that Mr. Frank remarked that a drink of whiskey would do him good and that Mrs. Frank said there was none in the house, but insisted that Mr. Frank get some breakfast before going out. However, they hurried to the undertaking establishment, the witness said.

Mr. Rogers said that on the way to the undertaker’s establishment, Mr. Frank remarked that he had dreamed he had heard his telephone ring about daybreak. Detective Black asked Mr. Frank whether he knew Mary Phagan, the witness said, Mr. Frank replying that he didn’t know whether he did or not.

The witness said that Mr. Frank did not go into the room in which the Phagan child’s body lay.

Mr. Frank remarked, the witness said, that he could refer to his payroll and see whether Mary Phagan worked at the pencil factory.

“Was Mr. Frank steady or trembling at the undertaking establishment?” was asked Mr. Rogers.

“I couldn’t say,” he answered.

Mr. Frank suggested that they go to the factory, the witness said. At the factory, the witness said, they found a number of detectives and policemen and Mr. Darley, an official of the factory, who had been summoned. They went upstairs, the witness aid, to the office and Mr. Frank referred to the payroll, saying that Mary Phagan worked there and that she had been paid $1.20 the day before, shortly after 12 o’clock.

ELEVATOR AT SECOND FLOOR.

The witness said that Mr. Frank then asked if the pay envelope had been found, remarking that it must be around somewhere. They went to the basement in the elevator, which stood at the second floor, the witness said. Mr. Frank switched the current and there was some delay in getting the elevator to work. The fire doors of the elevator were open at this time, Mr. Rogers said, but he didn’t remember whether they were open or closed when he went to the factory the first time.

The elevator was run to the basement, the witness said and Mr. Frank was shown where the body had been found.

CHANGED TAPE IN CLOCK.

When he returned from the basement, said the witness, he sat in Mr. Frank’s inner office with the negro , Lee. Mr. Frank stayed in outer office, but came in twice where he and negro were, and, on the second trip, Mr. Frank looked at the negro and shook his head and said, “Too bad!”

Mr. Frank asked repeatedly if the officers were through with him, saying he wanted to go out and get a cup of coffee, but no opportunity to get the coffee arose. After a while, said the witness, after Mr. Frank had been through the building with Chief of Detectives Lanford, Mr. Frank suggested that they change the tape in the time clock. Mr. Frank took a key to the clock, which he wore on a ring at his belt, and opened the clock with it and removed the time slip and laid it down by the clock. He then went back into his office and got a blank slip. He asked one of the officers standing near to hold back a little lever while he inserted this slip. The lever knocked against a little pencil in the clock. Newt Lee, the negro, was standing near. Mr. Frank turned to the negro and asked, “What is this pencil doing in the hole?” Lee said he had put it there so his number would be sure to register every time he rang. Mr. Frank put the key back at his belt and dated the slip which he had taken from the clock with a pencil which he took from his pocket. The witness though Mr. Frank wrote the date “April 26, 1913,” on it, but he wouldn’t be sure about that, he said.

Mr. Frank, after examining the slip, stated that it was punched correctly, said the witness. He also looked at the slip. The first punch started at 6 p. m., and it was punched every half hour, the witness thought, up to 2:30 o’clock. At 2:30 was the last punch. Mr. Frank took the slip into his own office, said the witness, and the witness said he did not know what became of it after that. A little later they all got into his automobile, said Rogers, Mr. Frank sitting in Mr. Darley’s lap in front beside him (the witness) at the wheel, and some of the officers sitting with Frank in the back.

At this point the coroner asked where Mr. Darley was when the clock slip was being removed. He was standing near by, said the witness.

After delivering his passengers at police headquarters, said Rogers, he went with Miss Hix to take her back to her own home.

On the trip to headquarters, said he, Mr. Frank did not seem to be as nervous as he had been. When he returned to headquarters, said the witness, the detectives were getting Newt Lee, the negro, to write. Lee then seemed very nervous.

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Atlanta Journal, May 8th 1913, “Phagan Inquest in Session; Six Witnesses are Examined Before Adjournment to 2:30,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Wednesday, May 7^th, 1913

Detectives Said to Attach Much Importance to Testimony That Two Girls Will Give When Inquest Resumes

INQUEST WILL BE ENDED THURSDAY, SAYS DONEHOO

Paul P. Bowen Has Been Released by Houston Officials—Chief Detective and 14 Policemen Are Discharged

Two new witnesses, whom the detectives have recently located, are expected to give testimony of importance at the final session of the Phagan inquest Thursday.

One of the witnesses is Miss Grace Hix, of 100 McDonough road, daughter of James E. Hix. Miss Hix worked at the same machine with Mary Phagan, but has not been to the factory since the latter was slain. Miss Hix was closeted for two hours with the detectives Tuesday evening, but it is not known just what her testimony will be. [Appears to be missing words in the printing—Ed.] day Mary Phagan was killed, but did not see her, according to a statement she made to a Journal reporter Wednesday afternoon at 2:45 o’clock.

“The last time I saw Mary Phagan was on the Monday before she was killed,” said Miss Hix. “That was the day she got layed off. I was uptown Saturday, the day she was killed, but I did not see her.”

The name of the other witness has not been learned. That witness, a young woman, who works at the factory will testify according to the same report, that on the Saturday that Mary Phagan met her death, she (the witness) went to the factory to get her own envelope. According to the report the young woman will testify that she went to Superintendent Frank’s office between 12:10 and 12:20 o’clock (the time Mary Phagan is supposed to have gone for her pay) and waited about five minutes.

TO FINISH INQUEST.

The coroner’s inquest will be concluded Thursday, according to Coroner Paul Donehoo. The inquest has been probably the most thorough and exhaustive ever conducted in Georgia, the jurors having spent many hours in listening to testimony in the case and now the coroner is determined that the inquest itself shall be concluded at Thursday’s session and the jurors relieved from further duty in the case.

It is probable that the body of little Mary Phagan interred at Marietta a week ago will be again exhumed before the final session of the jury. It is said that one important point has now not been fully covered by the examination and this will necessitate the lifting of Mary Phagan’s body from the grave a second time. Before any action is taken, however, the parents of the slain girl will be consulted. It is probable that Dr. J. W. Hurt, the country physician, and Dr. H. F. Harris, of the state board of health, will make the second examination.

It was reported that the principal reason for exhuming the body again is to get some of the hair from the murdered child’s head in order that it might be compared with the hair found in the metal room at the pencil factory. It is understood that the hair which was in possession of the detectives has been lost.

Officials will make no definite statement relative to the second examination of the girl’s body, but it was learned from the coroner that at noon Wednesday the physicians, who are to make the examination, had not started for Marietta. It is said to be practically certain, however, that the body will be exhumed before the convening of the final session of the inquest.

NO EVIDENCE AGAINST BOWEN.

A development of interest in the case as the release of Paul Peniston Bowen, the former Atlantian [sic], who was arrested in Houston, Tex., as a suspect in the Phagan case. The release of Bowen carries out the prediction made Tuesday afternoon by The Journal, when after a vigorous investigation The Journal was able to show that it was practically impossible for Bowen, who left here about nine months ago, to have been in Atlanta or Georgia at the time of the murder.

Young Bowen is well and favorably known in Atlanta, where he worked for several years and has many friends here, who have received letters from him recently. He comes originally from Newnan, where his family is prominent. Interesting in connection with Bowen’s release is the announcement of the summary removal from office of Chief of Detectives George Peyton, of Houston, who made the arrest. Chief of Police Ben S. Davison declares that Peyton exceeded his authority in taking young Bowen into custody. Chief Beavers has wired Houston that Bowen is not wanted by the Atlanta police.

INQUEST AT 9:30.

Interest in the Phagan investigation is again centered in the coroner’s inquest, which is scheduled to resume its probe into the mystery on Thursday morning at 9:30 o’clock.

Just what witnesses will go before the coroner’s jury is not known, as the actions of the officials have been shrouded in mystery since the active entrance of Solicitor Dorsey in the case. It is probable, however, that in addition to recalling Newt Lee to the stand, the jurors will hear the testimony of Dr. Hurt, of Dr. Harris, and of Dr. Claude Smith, the city bacteriologist, who has examined the bloodstains on the shirt found at Lee’s home, on the floor of the factory and on the garments of the murdered girl.

NEWT LEE TO TESTIFY.

The examination of Newt Lee before the jurors will be a vigorous probe, similar to the questioning Monday afternoon of L. M. Frank, and especial emphasis will be laid on the conversation the two men had some days ago in the negro’s cell.

It is not improbable that Mr. Frank himself will be recalled to the stand. Despite the fact that he gave testimony for three hours and a half, the stenographic record of his statement is being examined by the officials in order that they may bring him back if they are able to find any pertinent question that was not put to him during the three and one-half hours examination Monday.

Lemmie Quinn, foreman of the tipping department in which Mary Phagan worked, may be another witness before the inquest. Quinn’s corroboration of Frank’s statement that he (Quinn) came to the factory a few minutes after Mary Phagan got her pay envelope will, it is said, be attacked by the detectives.

Few other witnesses will be examined Thursday, it is said, although it is probable that the two girls who are said to have been paid shortly before Mary Phagan arrived at the factory, may be put on the stand.

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Atlanta Journal, May 7th 1913, “Two New Witnesses in Phagan Mystery to Testify Thursday,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Wednesday, April 30^th, 1913

The Journal’s Three Handwriting Experts Still Firm in Their Conviction That Newt Lee Wrote Mysterious Notes When Shown Copies Written by Both Frank and Lee in Comparison With Original Note Found

Having compared exact reproductions of the notes found near the body of Mary Phagan with specimens of the handwriting of Newt Lee, the night watchman, and of Leo M. Frank, the superintendent of the National Pencil company, three handwriting experts Tuesday morning stuck to their first opinion that the negro’s handwriting and that of the notes found near the girl are the same.

They did this after a minute examination of the copy of the note written by Frank under direction of the detectives. Each then declared in effect that although it was within the bounds of possibility for Frank to have written the notes found near the girl, that it was extremely improbable.

They reiterated their assertions that the negro’s handwriting was the same as that in the notes.

Frank M. Berry, assistant cashier of the Fourth National bank; Andrew M. Bergstrom, assistant cashier of the Third National bank, and Pope C. Driver, chief bookkeeper of the mall department of the American National bank, are the men who gave their opinion on all three notes.

A portion of one of the notes found near the dead girl reads:

“But that long tall black negro did boy his slef.”

At the dictation of Chief of Detectives N. A. Lanford, Lee wrote this sentence shortly following his arrest. The same method was employed with Frank.

All three of these specimens were shown to the three handwriting experts.

Mr. Bergstrom declared that although the original note and that written by Frank had many similar points, that he still believed that the hand-writing of the negro was the same as that of the note. He pointed out that a man of Frank’s intelligence could have disguised his hand more readily than the negro.

Mr. Berry refused to consider Frank’s handwriting in connection with the note found near the girl.

“I have already said,” he declared, “that the man who wrote this,” pointing to the handwriting of Lee, “wrote this,” pointing to the handwriting of the note.

He then examined Frank’s handwriting closely, but refused to change his opinion.

Pope Driver also stood pat on his first opinion that the negro’s handwriting was the same as that in the note.

All three experts spoke of the significant fact that in writing the note from dictation Lee had written boy for by and slef for self, thus duplicating the spelling in the note, whereas Frank has spelled five words differently from the way they were spelled in the note.

They pointed out that the t’s in the note and those made by Lee were both crossed near the top, and that the last word in the note and the last word written by Lee are almost exactly alike.

They agreed, however, that the word negro written by Frank and the word negro in the note were very similar.

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Atlanta Journal, April 30th 1913, “Negro Watchman Wrote Note Found Beside Dead Girl, Experts Declare, After Seeing Frank’s Handwriting,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Leo M. Frank [On early Monday morning (April 28th, 1913), Leo Frank already had his lawyers present to answer questions from the police; the most expensive criminal defense lawyers in Georgia, somehow secured over the weekend, just one day after the murder and before Leo Frank was even seen as a major suspect. On Sunday, Frank told the police he was alone with Mary in his office at 12:03pm, but on Monday, with his lawyers at his side, he changed the time to between 12:05 and 12:10pm, a habit Frank would later fall into during subsequent questioning and trials. — Ed.]

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Wednesday, April 30^th, 1913

They Decline to Say, However, Whether Conversation Between Superintendent and Watchman Was Overheard

WAS MARY PHAGAN SEEN AT 5 P. M.?

J. L. Watkins Says He Saw Her Near Her Home—Chemist’s Tests Shows No Blood Under Negro’s Finger Nails

A report that there was a Dictaphone in the room in which Leo M. Frank talked with Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, at police headquarters Tuesday night in a supposed effort to wring a confession from the negro, was denied Wednesday by both Chief of Detectives Lanford and Chief of Police Beavers.

Neither official, however, would say that the conversation between the factory superintendent and the negro was private. They were asked directly if any member of the police or detective departments heard what was said between Frank and the negro but declined to say.

There is a strong belief that the meeting between the superintendent and the negro was arranged by the detectives in the hope of obtaining evidence without the knowledge of either Mr. Frank or the night watchman. The report spread that sensational evidence was obtained in this manner, but no confirmation could be obtained at headquarters.

WHAT TIME CLOCK SHOWS.

Despite the negro watchman’s statement that he passed every half hour through the machine room, where it is presumed Mary Phagan first battled to save her honor and her life, an examination of the clock’s record which was brought to police headquarters Tuesday afternoon, developed that the clock had not been punched from midnight Saturday until long after the body of the murdered girl was found.

The time clock record shows that the instrument was visited regularly up to 9:25 o’clock Saturday night. It was next punched at 10:29 o’clock. Next the instrument records a visit from some-one, presumably the night watchman, at midnight. The clock was not punched between 2 o’clock and 3 o’clock in the morning.

Considered of far more importance that the irregularity of the visits of the watchman to the time clock, despite the fact that his previous record shows that almost invariably he punched the clock each half hour on past nights, was the finding by City Detective John Black and Harry Scott, of the Pinkertons, of a bloody shirt stuffed in a barrel at the negro watchman’s home on Hendrix avenue.

Between the irregular adjustments of the clock the negro would have had ample time to visit his home, it is said.

Still the detectives argue, the evidence against Lee might have been planted. Lee was confronted with the bloody shirt and he says that he hasn’t worn it in two years, and that when last he saw the shirt it had no blood on it. His wife declares that he left the house Saturday wearing the shirt he now has on at police headquarters.

SAYS HE SAW HER AT 5 P. M.

J. L. Watkins, a blacksmith at the corner of Bellwood avenue and Ashby street, is positive that he saw Mary Phagan about 5 o’clock Saturday afternoon, and he is the first witness who is positive that the murdered girl left the Forsyth street factory after she went there Saturday about noon to collect the $1.20 due her for two days’ work in the place.

Watkins lives near Mary Phagan’s home, and says that he has known her for years.

Saturday afternoon about 5 o’clock, he tells The Journal, he saw her walking up Bellwood avenue in the direction of her home on Lindsay street. He was walking behind her, he says, and was only ten paces away.

“I am positive that it was Mary Phagan,” said Mr. Watkins, “and I have known her as a neighbor for many years.

“When I last saw her she was cutting across a vacant lot towards Lindsay street and her home. She was dressed in a blue skirt and white shirtwaist and was bareheaded.”

Watkins was located by the detectives Tuesday and made substantially the same statement to them that he has to The Journal.

NO BLOOD UNDER NAILS.

A chemical analysis was made Tuesday night at the direction of Chief of Detectives Lanford of the dirt under the finger nails of Newt Lee. The analysis proved a point in the negro’s favor rather than against him, since it developed absolutely no trace of blood.

It developed Wednesday that on an investigation by the detectives the supposed “blood finger prints” on the dead girl’s arm were proved to be “paint finger prints,” and according to Chief Lanford, the paint might have been on the arm for weeks.

All efforts to break Lee down and force a confession or more complete statement failed Tuesday night. Francis E. Wright, of Pulliam street, salesman, assisted the detectives in “sweating” Lee during the evening, and emerged from a long conference with the statement that the negro must be innocent. There is also a growing impression among the rank and file at police headquarters, that the watchman, despite the circumstantial evidence against him, did not commit the crime.

Walter Graham, a young white man of 75 Marietta street, smuggled a derringer revolver into a cell at headquarters next to Lee, and Tuesday night discharged the weapon. Lee was badly frightened by the report, but when visited shortly afterwards by the detectives had not weakened.

FRANK KEEPS CALM.

Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the factory, a thin, wiry man, who wears eyeglasses with thick lenses, and who

USE OF DICTAPHONE ON FRANK AND NEGRO IS DENIED BY POLICE

(Continued From Page One.)

does not appear to be in the best of health, is taking his imprisonment very calmly.

When he was told by The Journal of the result of the examination of the time clock record of his factory, he showed great surprise.

“I don’t remember ever having heard of Lee’s failing to punch the clock at regular intervals,” he said.

“While I do not examine the record each day, if the negro failed in his duty, it would have been reported to me immediately. Lee has been unusually faithful about his duties.”

Numbers of Frank’s friends visited him at the police headquarters during Tuesday afternoon and evening, and it was not until shortly after midnight that they left. He, with a guard by his side, went to sleep on a cot in the office of detectives and slept soundly for several hours.

[J.] M. Gantt, whose attorneys, Gober & Jackson, took him before Judge George L. Bell, of the superior court, on a writ of habeas corpus Tuesday afternoon, has been transferred at the judge’s order to the Tower.

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Atlanta Journal, April 30th 1913, “Use of Dictaphone on Frank and Negro Denied by Police,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Believes That Newt Lee Bound and Gagged, Then Murdered Mary Phagan

W. J. Coleman, step-father of Mary Phagan, believes that she was murdered by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, but that before the murder she lay bound and gagged in the factory of the National Pen [sic] company, 37 South Forsyth street, from shortly after noon on Saturday until past midnight.

As people passed back and forth along the street, as members of the girl’s family waited anxiously for her return, he thinks that she lay helpless within the factory, while the negro waited for an opportune time to attack and then murder her.

His belief is that as soon as she had been paid the wages that she went to the factory to collect, she passed into the dressing room, perhaps for a drink of water. There, in his opinion, the negro seized the girl and bound and gagged her. He says there is plain evidence in the dressing room that the girl was first attacked there.

He does not believe that either Arthur Mullinax or J. M. Gant [sic] had any hand in the murder of Mary Phagan.

“The negro evidently kept the child in the factory all day,” Mr. Coleman said, “and was afraid to attack her until midnight for fear she would scream or somebody would come. He may or may not have knocked her senseless from the first, or he may have tied her. I do not know but when Gantt entered the shop, it is more than likely that he knew nothing of the girl’s presence there and simply went up and got his shoes, as he said, and went out again.

“All this about Mary having seen on the street at midnight or at any other time after 12 o’clock in the day I do not think can be true. I believe she remained all day in the building. After the negro did the work he was afraid to leave or not to notify the police, which would make appearances worse for him. Therefore he called the officers.”

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Atlanta Journal, April 29th 1913, “Stepfather Thinks Negro is Murderer,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

1—Mary Phagan’s own handwriting, as shown in her address she wrote for Sunday School teacher. 2—Written by Lee at suggestion of detectives for purpose of comparison. 3—One of notes found in cellar. 4—Also written by Lee at suggestion of detectives.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Monday, April 28^th, 1913

It’s Discovery Leads to Theory That She May Have Been Attacked There and Then Dragged to Factory Basement

The finding of half a dozen strands of hair in the cogs of a steel lathe in the metal room on the second floor of the National Pencil company’s factory and the discovery of blood splotches on the floor, early Monday morning, aroused the belief that this was the scene of the murder of fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan, Sunday morning. There were no other evidences of a death struggle here, but there was little in the room that could have been disturbed by a combat.

The hair is of the same shade as that of the murdered girl.

A cunning effort has been made to conceal the blood stains on the floor by the smearing of some kind of a powder over the surface. A single drop of congealed blood was found, however, by a Journal reporter, and a further investigation revealed more.

In the absence of contradictory evidence, it is now the belief that the girl was killed in this room and her body then dragged in the opening in the first floor, where it was lowered to the basement. This tends to implicate more than one murderer, as the weighed nearly 150 pounds.

CALLED THERE FOR PAY?

Miss Phagan formerly worked in the very room in which she is believed to have met death. She and four other girls were employed there in manufacturing the metal caps which fasten the rubber erasers to the ends of pencils.

On last Tuesday, because of a shortage in material, she and her companions were laid off by L. A. Quinn, foreman of the shop. They were to return to work when metal arrived.

On Friday, Foreman Quinn endeavored to locate Miss Phagan and her three companions. He wanted to tell them to call for their pay on Friday, as Saturday, the regular payday, was a holiday. Owing to the fact that the dead girl could not be reached by telephone, she was not notified of the change in payday, and on Saturday she went to the factory expecting to get her money.

What she did after her arrival has not yet been determined by the police.

Miss Phagan was the stepdaughter of J. W. Coleman. Her mother was prostrate with grief on Sunday when, after spending a sleepless night, worrying over her daughter’s unexplained absence, she was told that the girl was the victim of one of the most atrocious murders in the criminal history of Atlanta. Sunday night she became hysterical, and physicians were summoned.

The girl also has three brothers. Two live in Atlanta, and one joined the navy but six months ago.

NEGRO FOUND BODY.

Newt Lee, negro night watchman, discovered the body of the girl at 3:30 o’clock Sunday morning. He called the police, who hastened to the scean [sic] in an automobile. The black met the machine and told an almost incoherent story of how he had stumbled on the body in the darkness of the basement. His manner aroused immediate suspicion in the minds of the officers, and he was later taken into custody. He denies knowledge of the crime, however.

The limbs of the corps [sic] had grown rigid, but the blood which had flowed from the deep wound on the girl’s head was still damp.

Other evidences of murder were all about. The handkerchief of the victim was found forty feet away. It was saturated with blood. Another handkerchief—a man’s—was found beside the body. It too, was soaked in blood.

A hat and a parasol, later identified as belonging to the murdered girl, were found in the elevator shaft.

MESH HANDBAG MISSING.

Her mesh handbag, said to have contained a few dollars in cash and valuless personal effects, was missing, however, though she was said to have taken it from home with her.

On her wrist was a plain gold bracelet. It was bent, and was splotched with blood. Upon a finger of her left hand was a small signet ring upon which was engraved “W.”

It was 6 o’clock Sunday morning before the girl was identified. Miss Grace Hicks, one of the girls employed in the factory, was brought to the scene in an automobile. She swooned as soon as she saw the senseless form and battered face of her former companion.

“It’s Mary Phagan,” she sobbed a moment later, “Poor Mary!”

A few hours later detectives reached the conclusion that the girl had been dragged before the murder, either while in the factory or before her arrival there. An examination showed that a criminal assault had preceded the homicide.

A crude garrotte, manufactured of two strips of underclothing torn from the girl’s body, had been used to choke her. Apparently it had been placed about her neck and then twisted.

One of the theories of the police is that the girl and her later murderer (or murderers) entered the building through the Forsyth street entrance, and that the perpetrators of the crime left through a rear door. This theory is borne out by the fact that a door permitting egress through an alley to West Hunter street was forced open. The staple holding the lock was torn from the woodwork.

HANDWRITING NOT KNOWN.

Efforts to identify the penmanship of the notes found by the dead girl’s side failed. Samples of her handwriting, of Mullinax’s and of that of the negro watchman, all failed to agree with it. If either of the men wrote the messages they successfully disguised their handwriting; if the girl really did write the missives, she did so in the throes of approaching death. One of the notes was penciled on an order blank of the factory.

NEGRO’S STORY UNSHAKEN.

Newt Lee, negro nightwatchman, held as a suspect in solitary confinement, denied absolutely any knowledge of the crime. Without weakening or changing his first statements, in any way, the black stood several severe grillings at the hands of the police Sunday. His story was not shaken.

Accompanied by reporters and detectives, he was taken Sunday to the basement in the pencil factory where he discovered the remains of the pretty girl. In pantomime he re-enacted the finding of the body.

A detective lay on the floor in the exact spot where the body was found. The lights were turned out and the negro told to depict his actions earlier in the morning. While the small audience looked on, the black descended the ladder through the trap door outside. He remained there a few moments and then walked over to the side of the detective.

“That’s the way it happened,” he said. The police admit that the negro’s tale of the finding of the body is plausible and possible.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, April 28th 1913, “Strand of Hair in Machine on Second Floor May Be Clew Left by Mary Phagan,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Arthur Mullinax, who seems to have established an alibi through statements of friends that he was at home on night of the murder. [Mullinax is the young man said to have been seen with Mary Phagan Saturday night by Edgar Sentell. Sentell was unwavering with his statement on what he had seen. However, Mullinax’s girlfriend came forward and stated that she had been with him that evening and that Mullinax was entirely innocent. — Ed.]

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Monday, April 28^th, 1913

Gantt Protests His Innocence, Declaring He Knows Nothing of the Crime — Says He Went to Factory Saturday to Get Pair of Shoes Left There—His Statement is Confirmed by Superintendent Frank

DECLARES HE KNEW MARY PHAGAN BUT HAD NOT HARMED HER

It Is Not Known What Was Purpose of His Visit to Marietta Monday —His Whereabouts Sunday Not Yet Explained —Story of His Arrest and What He Says

J. M. Gantt, who was discharged three weeks ago from the position of bookkeeper at the National Pencil company, was arrested shortly before noon Monday at Marietta in connection with the murder of Mary Phagan.

He is the man for whom the police were searching during Monday morning, but whose name they refused to divulge. He was arrested by Bailiff Hicks, of Marietta, just as he stepped from a street car in which he had come from Atlanta.

Gantt protests his innocence, and says that he knows nothing whatever of the murder of Mary Phagan. He admits having gone to the factory of the National Pencil company on Saturday afternoon for shoes that he had left there, but denies that he returned to the factory or was with Mary Phagan at any time during the day.

In a brief statement which he had made at Marietta he said that he knew the murdered girl, but that they were not intimate friends. He explained that after getting the pair of shoes from the factory, he went home and remained there during the night, and that he had no knowledge of the murder until Sunday morning.

It is not known what he did on Sunday, and his visit to Marietta is unexplained. He took the street car from Atlanta, and was arrested as he arrived at Marietta by Bailiff Hicks, who had been notified that Gantt was wanted by the Atlanta police.

The above photograph shows the rear of the building occupied by the plant of the National Pencil factory where fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan was found early Sunday morning cold in death, her head battered and a piece of twine about her neck. In the upper right hand corner is shown the back door leading into the death chamber, a dismal hole reeking with the smell of damp earth that appears never to be dry. It was out of this door that the staple holding the hasp was drawn, apparently from the inside, which indicated, according to the detectives, that the assailant made his escape this way. There is a board runway from the entrance to the ground floor of the basement and it was at the extreme end of this that the body of the murdered girl was found as shown above. Strands of golden hair, sworn by Little Magnolia Kennedy, who worked in the metal room with the slain girl, to belong to her, were found entwined from a projection of the bench lathe shown on the second floor. Across the room, just at the corner of a small closet were found the spots on the floor, later determined to be blood when particles of the board were tested in alcohol by Chief of Police Beavers. Employes [sic] of the factory stated most emphatically that the spots were not there after the room had been swept out Friday afternoon.

Superintendent Frank, of the National Pencil factory, corroborates Gantt’s story about the visit Saturday afternoon to the factory. He says that about 6 o’clock in the evening, Gantt came to the factory and asked permission to get an old pair of shoes that he had left there before his discharge.

PERMISSION GRANTED.

The negro night watchman, Newt Lee, asked the superintendent whether Gantt should be permitted to get the shoes, and the permission was granted. But when the superintendent had reached home about 7:30 o’clock, he grew uneasy. He telephoned to the office to know when Gantt left, and Newt Lee, the watchman, answered that the bookkeeper took his departure immediately after getting the shoes.

This is all that officials or employees of the factory know of Gantt’s movements, and the police gave little further information.

When they learned on Monday morning that Gantt had visited the pencil factory on the day of the murder and that he was an acquaintance of Mary Phagan’s they immediately set out to find him.

Two detectives, accompanied by an employee of the factory who knew Gantt, went to the Terminal station searching for him, and the hunt for the bookkeeper was carried on in other parts of the city. But until he was arrested at Marietta by Bailiff Hicks, nothing had been seen of the bookkeeper who the police believe can throw light on the murder of the fourteen-year-old girl.

Detective Hazelitt has gone to Marietta to bring Gantt to Atlanta.

Following closely upon the arrest of J. M. Gantt, discharged bookkeeper of the National Pencil company, in Marietta, Monday morning, Deputy Sheriff Hazelett, armed with a warrant charging the man with the crime, took him in charge and placed him in the Marietta jail. The warrant was sworn out in Atlanta by Detective Ozburn, of the local police force.

While Gantt is incarcerated, Hazelett is making further investigations, the nature of which he declines to divulge. He intimated, however, that still further developments might be expected. When he has completed his investigation, he will return to Atlanta with the prisoner.

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Atlanta Journal, April 28th 1913, “J. M. Gantt is Arrested on His Arrival in Marietta; He Visited Factory Saturday,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Mary Phagan [Interestingly, according to testimony given before the Coroner’s Jury by Mary’s boy sweetheart, George W. Epps, Mary had requested that George walk her home from the factory after work a few days before the murder as the superintendent, Leo M. Frank, had a habit of watching for her from the front door, looking suspicious, and winking at her. — Ed.]

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Monday, April 28^th, 1913

Developments in Case Have Come Thick and Fast Monday but No Evidence Has Yet Been Developed Which Fixes the Atrocious Crime — Mullinax Seems to Have Proved Alibi

SUPERINTENDENT FRANK AIDS POLICE IN TRYING TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY

He Was Closely Questioned for Several Hours Monday but Left Headquarters in Company With His Attorneys and Friends—Crime Was Committed in Metal Room on Second Floor—Sleeping Compartment Found in Factory Basement

Detectives expect to wring the secret of Mary Phagan’s murder from Newt Lee, negro night watchman at the National Pencil factory, 37-39 South Forsyth street.

Their theory is that he is innocent of the crime itself, but that he knows the murderer of the fourteen-year-old girl, and is shielding the man who strangled Mary Phagan with a piece of hempen cord on Saturday and dragged her body into the pitch black cellar of the factory.

The negro will tell nothing, but from him and from J. M. Gantt, the discharged bookkeeper, detectives expect to draw the story of how Mary Phagan was beaten into unconsciousness, assaulted, and then strangled to death.

FOUR ARE UNDER ARREST.

Four men are under arrest: Lee, the negro night watchman; Gantt, who was discharged three weeks ago by the company; Arthur Mullinax, of 62 Poplar street, and Gordon Bailey, a negro elevator boy at the pencil factory.

L. M. Frank, superintendent of the pencil factory, was questioned by the police, and spent the better part of Monday morning at [the] police station. But he was not placed under arrest, and at noon returned home.

An alibi has practically been established for Mullinax by Jim Rutherford, with whom he boarded, and the police have no direct evidence against Gordon Bailey, the elevator boy.

They are depending upon Newt Lee, the watchman, and upon Gantt, the discharged bookkeeper, for a solution of the mystery which brands the murder of the fourteen-year-old girl.

SLEEPING COMPARTMENT.

An improved cot, fashioned from wooden boxes pushed close together and covered with crocus bags, was discovered in a separate compartment in the basement at the rear end near where the dead body of the girl was found. The compartment which is about eight or ten feet wide runs about half the length of the building and the ground is soggy with dampness.

Just inside, and to the left of the door at the back end, is the cot. In the ground near it were discovered two small footprints, that are believed to be those of a woman. The belief is now that the girl was lured here, assaulted and then murdered and her body dragged to the spot outside where it was found lying face downward in a pool of blood.

Through the discovery of this cot the police are led to believe that it has been used as a place of rendezvous.

The watchman discovered the place Sunday and pointed it out to newspaper men who discovered the tell-tale footprints through the aid of lanterns in the ill smelling, damp and dismal place.

It is the theory of the police that the negro, Newt Lee, knew of the place.

The negro fireman, William Nolle, who has been in the employ of the company for two months, denied most emphatically any knowledge of the existence of the rendezvous.

The [diagram] above shows the lathe, where strands of woman’s hair were found. Also the machine room on the second floor, giving location of elevator shaft, stairway, etc. Diagram of basement (where the body was found) shows ladder to trap door and the door where a staple had been pulled. The big cross indicates the spot where the body was found.

Investigations Monday morning proved that Mary Phagan was murdered in the metal room, on the second floor of the factory, and that her body was lowered in the elevator to the basement, and was dragged across the oozy, slimy floor of the cellar to the corner where it was found lying face upward between 3 and 4 o’clock Sunday morning.

They are not sure of the time at which the child was murdered, but they believe that she met her death at midnight instead of Saturday afternoon or Saturday evening.

BELIEVES WATCHMAN KNOWS.

The negro night watchman was on duty during the later afternoon and throughout the night, and they are convinced that he must know how the crime was committed. As soon as he can be made to tell his story, detectives believe that they will have the full account of how the girl was murdered.

Blood upon the floor in the metal room, and strands of hair found in the machinery of a lathe, establish the fact that Mary Phagan met her death there instead of in the cellar.

With inhuman ferocity she was attacked, beaten into unconsciousness and her murder completed by the hempen rope twisted about her throat.

Newt Lee, the watchman, remained in the building throughout the night, but he says that he heard no screams, that he knew nothing of the murder in the metal room, and that he neither saw nor heard the murderer as the dead body of Mary Phagan was placed in the elevator, lowered to the cellar, and dragged across the wet damp floor to the corner where it was found.

The police place no belief in his professed ignorance. They think that he must know who murdered the girl and who bore the body to the cellar.

They are also entertaining the theory that the murderer must have had assistance in lowering the body to the basement, and that perhaps the negro watchman lent his aid.

NEGRO KEEPS HIS TONGUE.

The negro’s silence has been proof against all questions, but the police are confident that he has the whole story at his tongue’s end and that he will eventually clear the mystery.

The third degree for the watchman and an examination of Gantt, the discharged bookkeeper, are the means through which the police mean to discover the murderer of Mary Phagan.

Their efforts Monday morning bore fruit chiefly in the arrest of Gantt, and the discovery of facts which seem to tassure the negro’s knowledge of the murder.

They first discovered that the girl had been murdered upon the second floor and her body lowered to the basement; they next found that Gantt had visited the factory on Saturday afternoon, and they finally effected his arrest at Marietta.

SUPERINTENDENT IS QUESTIONED.

Other developments of the day were chiefly random investigations. L. M. Frank, superintendent of the pencil factory, was questioned at [the] police station during the greater part of the morning and stenographic record was kept of his answers. So rigid was this examination that Mr. Frank employed Luther Rosser and Herbert Haas to represent him in his appearance before the police. But no charges were made against him, and at the conclusion of his examination, he returned home.

The coroner’s jury met and made a personal investigation of the metal room where Mary Phagan was murdered and the cellar where her body was found. But the examination of witnesses was deferred until Wednesday.

FRANK LEAVES STATION.

At 12:15 o’clock Leo M. Frank, superintendent of the National Pencil company’s plant in which fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan was murdered some time Sunday morning, left police headquarters in the company of his lawyers and a number of friends. Before leaving, he had confronted Arthur Mullinax, the street car conductor, whom the police were holding under suspicion, and had declared that he never saw Mullinax before that moment. Also, he had helped the police to clarify the recollections

POLICE THINK WATCHMAN CAN CLEAR MYSTERY

[Continued from page 1]

of Newt Lee, negro night watchman, relative to one incident upon the evening preceding the crime. Lee had told the detectives that J. M. Gantt, formerly a bookkeeper at the plant, calling there Saturday afternoon and being admitted, had stayed in the office only three or four minutes. Under questions by Mr. Frank, the negro said Gantt stayed inside longer than that—long enough to wrap up his old shoes that he had called to get, and to telephone to some girl.

SAW MAN WITH GIRL.

L. T. (“Charley”) Hall, in charge of the automobile trucks of the city sanitary department, told the detectives that he took his brother-in-law to the corner of Forsyth and Alabama streets, a block north of the pencil factory, at midnight Saturday to put him aboard the last East Point car. After the car left, Hall entered the soda and cigar establishment on the opposite corner, west side of Forsyth, and while there, at about 12:05 o’clock, he saw a couple going down the street toward the pencil factory. The man, said he, seemed to fit the description given to him of Gantt. He had seen the man before around the plant, said he, when he went there with the sanitary trucks. He had looked on him as some sort of an official. Recently for couple of weeks he had not seen him. He was with a girl, whose dress reached just to her shoe tops. Hall thinks the girl wore white shoes. He thought no more of it until he read of the murder.

A woman whom no one could identify, called detective headquarters upon the phone Monday morning and asked if Mullinax, the trolley car conductor, was under arrest. Detective Hollingsworth informed her in the affirmative, and asked if she knew anything of the case. She answered, “Yes,” said he, but hung up before he could get any further replies from her.

FACTORY IS CLOSED.

Owing to the feeling of unrest and intense excitement that prevailed among the women employees at the National Pencil company’s plant Monday morning while detectives were making further investigations into the brutal murder and assault of little Mary Phagan, Assistant Superintendent H. G. Schiff, ordered the machinery stopped and the place cleared for the day.

The girls and women lost no time in getting into their wraps and hats and leaving the scene of the mysterious tragedy that still baffles those investigating the case. All were told, however, to be sure and report on time for work Tuesday morning.

HAIR IS IDENTIFIED.

It is the belief of detectives that an important witness has been discovered in Magnolia Kennedy, the young girl who worked next to Mary Phagan in the metal or pencil tip room. She will testify that the hair found wrapped around a part of a lathe in this department of the factory was that of Mary. L. A. Quinn, foreman of the room, was also positive that the strands of hair had come from the head of the dead girl. Other operatives were of the same opinion but not being in the same part of the place were not so certain.

But the little girl who worked with Mary, said that she was not mistaken. She was asked point blank if she [was sure] the strands came from the head of her companion. “I am positive of it,” she said, “and will swear to it if necessary.”

While detectives, newspaper men and employees gathered about the lathe little Magnolia tiptoed up close to the machine and stared intently at the golden strands. She shuddered. Awe-stricken women stood away from her. Then her voice broke the silence, “It’s Mary’s hair,” she almost whispered. “I know it.”

BLOOD SPOTS FOUND.

Across the room from the lathe, spots of blood were found on the floor near a wooden closet built out from the wall near a door that opened into another department of the factory.

The largest spot was four or five inches in diameter and around it were smaller spatterings. Detectives and Chief of Police Beavers chiseled up shavings of the flooring to get a better light on the wood. An alcohol test was made by dipping the stained piece of wood into the liquid. It was not soluable [sic] as paint or grease would have been, and did not discolor the contents of the glass. This test satisfied the officers that the stains were blood from the body of the murdered girl.

Employers of the factory stated positively that the spots were not there Friday afternoon when the room was swept out.

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Atlanta Journal, April 28th 1913, “Police Think Negro Watchman Can Clear Murder Mystery; Four Are Now Under Arrest,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

A sketch of pretty Mary Phagan from her latest photograph by Brewerton.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Wednesday April 30^th, 1913

Newt Lee, Negro Who Notified Police of Mary Phagan Murder, Tells Coroner Girl’s Body Was Lying Face Up With Head Toward West When He Found It — But Officers Declare They Found It Lying Face Down, Head Toward East, Knew She Was White, Said He, by Her Hair

SAYS MR. FRANK DID UNUSUAL THINGS, BUT DOES NOT DIRECTLY IMPLICATE ANYONE

Mr. Frank Met Him Outside Office Saturday Afternoon and Let Him Off for Two Hours, After Having Insisted That He Be There at 4 o’Clock—Mr. Frank Was Scared When He Saw Gantt, Says Negro—Telephoned Him That Night for First Time—Inquest Resumed at 2:15

That he found the body of Mary Phagan face up with its head toward the back of the building, was the startling evidence given at the coroner’s inquest Wednesday morning by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman at the National Pencil factory in which the child was murdered.

This evidence, by which the negro has stuck without wavering is in direct conflict with the evidence of all the police officers and others who answered the negro’s alarm.

They found the body lying face down with its head toward the front of the building, they all swear.

The negro swore to the coroner Wednesday, that when he scurried away from the body to the telephone, he stayed away until the officers came. He went with them—and they found the body exactly reversed from the position in which he says he found it.

Thus is mystery added to mystery in the crime.

If the negro tells the truth (and the police have been unable to shake him from his first story, however much they doubt some of its particulars), who turned the child’s body over upon its face with its head in the opposite direction after he left it go to the telephone?

WAS MURDERER STILL THERE?

Was the murderer lurking there in the gloom at the back of the basement when the negro came down the ladder?

Was it the purpose to burn the body in the furnace—which was not burning then, but which might have been lighted easily from the clutter and trash? Did the negro’s descent into the basement frustrate that? And then did the murderer pull the hasp on the rear door of the basement and flee before the officers got there?

Patience and perseverance upon the part of the police, and the incessant putting together of two and two, will reveal the story.

The negro did not attempt to implicate any one, in his evidence before the coroner’s jury. His evidence was damaging slightly to Mr. Frank, the superintendent, in that he said Mr. Frank sent him away from the factory from 4 to 6 after having insisted that he be there at 4; that Mr. Frank looked frightened when he came down the stairs as the negro, after his return, met Mr. Gantt at the street door; and that Mr. Frank never had called him before, as he did over the telephone between 7 and 8 o’clock  that evening, to ask if everything was all right. The obvious conflict, between the officers inability to distinguish at first whether the girl was white or black may be dismissed, perhaps, by the negro’s stout assertion that he knew by her hair, which was long and brown and wavy, totally unlike that of a negro woman.

At 12:40 o’clock the coroner’s inquest adjourned until 2:15 o’clock.

THINKS HE SAW HER.

J. G. Spier, of Cartersville, testified that he saw a man and a girl, the latter of whom he declared positively after seeing the body at the undertaking establishment was Mary Phagan, on Forsyth street, near the pencil factory Saturday afternoon about 3:50 o’clock. He was positive the girl was the same whose body was pointed out to him as Mary Phagan’s, he said, but was not sure of the man. The general “outline,” he said was the same as the pointed out to him as Frank. He saw this couple again about 5 o’clock, he said.

The first official and public probe into the deep mystery hiding the slayer of fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan, brutally murdered and mistreated last Saturday night in the National Pencil factory, was begun in earnest Wednesday morning at 9:10 o’clock, when the coroner’s jury began its examination of witnesses.

The inquest was held at police headquarters, behind the closed doors of the station, in the office of the board of commissioners. Coroner Donehoo assembled his jury again (following a recess since it was empaneled last Monday morning) at the undertaking establishment of P. J. Bloomfield on Pryor street, and marched at the head of it from there through the streets to police headquarters, preferring to go to the witnesses who were incarcerated rather than bring those witnesses to the jury.

The following witnesses were called and sworn by the coroner:

E. E. Shank.

W. J. Coleman, step-father of the murdered child.

Adam Woodward, negro nightwatchman in an adjoining livery stable, who believes he heard a woman’s screams about 11 o’clock Saturday night.

Newt Lee, negro nightwatchman in the pencil factory, who first reported the finding of the body.

W. W. Rogers, former county policeman, who carried the officers to the scene of the crime.

W. F. Anderson, call officer, city police.

Sergeants Brown and Dobbs, of the city police.

Miss Pearl Robertson, friend of Arthur Mullinax, the trolley car conductor who has been held upon suspicion.

J. M. Gantt, formerly bookkeeper at the National Pencil factory.

E. L. Sentell, who believes he saw the girl on the street with some man Saturday night.

It was a noticeable fact that L. M. Frank, superintendent of the factory, was not among the witnesses called at first. His attorney, Luther Z. Rosser, was present when the inquest began its work.

Coroner Donehoo resumed his inquest upon the mysterious murder of Mary Phagan Wednesday morning, reimpaneling shortly before 9 o’clock the same jury which met Monday and recessed for two days. The members of that jury are H. C. Ashford, L. Glenn Dewberry, of 352 Cooper street; J. C. Hood, of 185 Windsor street; C. A. Langford, of 144 Highland avenue; John Miller and C. Y. Sheats, of Cascade road.

Immediately after impanelling the jury at the undertaking shop of P. J. Bloomfield on Pryor street, where the murdered girl’s body had rested until it was removed for burial Tuesday. Coroner Donehoo led it away from the crowd congregated in the street in front of the establishment, marching to police headquarters. There the negro night watchman, Newt Lee, and the superintendent, L. M. Frank, of the National Pencil company, were in detention behind stout bars.

CALL OFFICER TESTIFIES.

W. F. Anderson, call officer, city police, was the first witness to be examined. He told of receiving a telephone call at police headquarters shortly after 3 o’clock Sunday morning a man’s voice informed him that the speaker was the negro night watchman at the National Pencil company factory and that he, the watchman, had found the body of a young woman who evidently had been murdered. She was a white girl, the negro said.

The witness went to the factory on Forsyth street with other officers, and was met there by the negro, Newt Lee, and was led by the negro through a trapdoor down a ladder into the basement, where after some moments he distinguished the body of the murdered girl later identified as Mary Phagan. He could not see it at first until he was almost upon it, said the officer. The body was lying in a corner beyond the end of a compartment partitioned off at the left from the main basement. It was lying upon its face. The left stocking was torn. The left shoe was missing. The left knee was bruised. The band around the bottom of the underskirt was torn off.

GRUESOME DETAILS GIVEN.

The head was very bloody, and the eyes were bloodshot. A cord, he said, which was a sort of small rope, was tied so tightly around the neck that it cut into the flesh. This cord was about six or seven feet long. In addition to it, the band which had been torn from the dead girl’s underskirt, was wrapped round the neck.

He also found a bruise just above and back of the ear. He testified that the mouth and eyes of the dead child were filled with dirt and sawdust, and that the whole face was so discolored with grime that he was not sure at first whether the girl was white.

In reply to questions he said that he hadn’t noticed whether the body had been dragged across the floor of the cellar.

After examining the body he had gone to the door which offered an exit from the cellar, and there he found that the staple on the inside had been drawn, and that the door had been opened by this means.

LANTERN LIGHT DIM.

At this point, Dr. J. W. Hurt took up the questioning and brought out an important fact from the witness.

He asked the witness what sort of light he had used in the cellar. The officer said that it was the usual police flashlight light. Then he inquired the sort of light used by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman. The officer answered that it was a lantern, very much smoked, which gave only a dim light.

Lee has told the police that he noticed the body as he stood twenty or thirty feet away.

“Could he have seen twenty or thirty feet with his lantern?” asked Dr. Hurt.

“He could not,” answered Officer Anderson, “He couldn’t have seen more than twelve or fifteen feet. And I also think that the place where he says he was standing is in such a position that rays from the lantern would not have even fallen in the direction of the body.

He also testified that the reason which the negro gave for going to the cellar was not convincing.

BASEMENT DESCRIBED.

He was present, said the witness, when somebody picked up a note near the body. He identified it as the one written on a slip of yellow paper. Later somebody found another note. He didn’t identify that. About five feet from the girl’s body a pencil was found. Near it was a pad from which the slip evidently had been torn. He described the basement—a long, narrow enclosure between rock walls, with the elevator shaft near the front, a boiler on the right about half way back, a partition on the left shutting in an enclosure which seemed to be waste space, an open toilet on the right beyond the boiler, the girl’s body on the left beyond that, and a door at the back end. The girl’s left slipper was found near the elevator. She wore no hat that the couldn’t find. He didn’t remember distinctly how she was dressed, but believed it was in some dark material.

SERGEANT BROWN TESTIFIES.

Sergeant R. J. Brown gave evidence putting heavy suspicion upon the negro night watchman, Newt Lee. Call Officer Anderson has testified that the negro told him over the telephone that the body was that of a young white woman.

Sergeant Brown declared that he and his brother officers found it impossible to tell whether it was the body of a white or a colored girl until they made a minute examination.

He described revolting details. He said that the negro’s story that he (the negro) first saw the body when he was standing some twenty-five feet away from it, seemed improbable to the officers, for they stood there and could not see it by the light of the negro’s lantern, nor could they make it out until they were within just a few feet of it.

It was only after a minute examination, said the sergeant, that he and the other officers concluded that the negro’s statement was right, that the body was that of a white person.

BODY WAS COLD.

“This is nothing but a child!” the officer said he exclaimed, when he first saw the body closely. The body was cold then and was somewhat still, said he.

“I couldn’t tell whether it was a white girl or a colored girl. I took some shavings from around there and rubbed her face with them. Still I couldn’t tell whether her skin was white or dark. Finally I had to roll the stocking down from the right knee—the other being torn and dirty; and then I saw her white skin.”

The officer said the body was fearfully dirty—particularly the face. There was a place on the dirt floor of the basement that looked as if something might have been dragged there. He did not believe that all of the dirt that was on the child’s face could have gotten there simply from the body’s lying upon the dirt floor. Dirt was inside the child’s mouth, even. Her tongue was swollen, and protruded almost to the point of her chin, showing she had choked to death. A piece of heavy twine was tied tightly around her neck. A strip from around the bottom of her underskirt was tied around her neck, too. He knew it was from her underskirt, because the lace on it matched the lace on her skirt, and a strip was missing there. The hands were folded beneath the body, but were not tied. He described the surrounding circumstances that he found—a lock on a staple near the back door, the staple having been pulled out. The negro night watchman’s lantern was of an ordinary type, said he, and had not been cleaned in some time, its globe being dirty and its light dim. Lee, the negro, told him that he (the negro) rarely went into the basement, but gave a reasonable excuse for his presence there when he found the body.

GAVE LITTLE INFORMATION.

Sergeant Brown testified that Newt Lee gave them little information upon their arrival at the pencil factory. He said that the negro did not tell them whether he had touched the corpse.

He was questioned as to who had telephoned to Frank, and he said that Officer Anderson endeavored to reach Frank over the phone. The officer told central that a girl had been murdered and that it was of utmost importance that he be given the number that he asked. But although this number was rung repeatedly, he got no answer. It was not until much later Sunday morning that the police were able to get into communication with Frank.

He testified that the negro would have found it almost impossible to see the body from the position in which Newt Lee said that he was standing at the time he made his grewsome discovery.

He continued his testimony by saying that the girl’s clothing was badly disordered and torn, and that the cord around her neck looped in the back. The band which was also bound round the neck was in two pieces which had been tied together. The tongue, he said, protruded an inch, and the blood upon the face was cold.

In his opinion the band from the underskirt had been tied about the neck before the rope, and that Mary Phagan was strangled to death.

CLOTHES ARE EXHIBITED.

When his testimony had been concluded a dramatic incident took place. The clothes that the girl had worn were brought forward for the jury to see, and were placed in a heap on a chair. There was a commotion at the side of the room. The brother of Mary Phagan rose, and for a moment remained staring at the heap in the chair. Without speaking, he clasped his hands to his head and pushed his way from the room.

Officer Anderson was recalled and testified that he found the body lying face downward, although Newt Lee had said that the body lay face upward.

He said that the legs of the body were not stiff, and that blood in the hair was still moist. Blood, he said, was still flowing from the body. According to his testimony, the head of the body lay toward Forsyth street, and there were signs in the cellar of a struggle.

The clothes which were shown to the jury consisted in a one-piece purple dress, with white trimmings. Only one shoe, a black gun-metal slipper, was displayed.

HE FOUND THE NOTES.

Sergeant L. S. Dobbs identified the two notes as having been found by himself near the body. One was written on yellow paper, the other on rough scratch pad paper. The elevator shaft, said he, is distant about 150 feet from where the body was found. He told of the minute examination that had to be made to determine whether or not the body was that of a white girl. Her hands looked as if she had been dragged face downward.

On the back of her head at the left was a wound. Cuts were on her face and forehead. The sergeant said he called Newt Lee, the negro, to him and said: “You did this or you know who did it.” The negro denied any guilt, said the sergeant.

The sergeant said that then he read one of the notes to the negro, with a sentence like this:

“Mommer: Tall black thin negro did this. He will try to lay it on night—“

The sentence came to the end of a line there, said the sergeant.

“That means me,” the sergeant said the negro night watchman said immediately. “The night watchman.”

Later, said the sergeant, he stood where the negro said he was standing when he saw the body and tried to see it. He even went so far as to have a fellow officer lie down where the body had been. But though it was daylight, he barely could discern the officer there, said the sergeant; nor would he have seen him at all had not been looking particularly toward that spot with a definite purpose. By the light of a dim lantern, it would have been practically impossible for the negro to have stood where he claimed, said he, and seen the body in the gloom partially behind the corner of the partition and slightly below floor level.

The staple taken from the rear door could not have been pulled off save from the inside, said he. A piece of iron nearby might have been used to prize it out, said he.

Sergeant Dobbs, in reply to a question as to whether he thought the body had been dragged, said that after daylight had come he noticed a trail leading from the elevator shaft to where the body had been found.

COULDN’T HAVE CARRIED BODY.

In his opinion an ordinary man could not have carried the body down the ladder to the basement. The elevator, Sergeant Dobbs said, was on the first floor, on the Forsyth street level.

The girl’s left shoe, Sergeant Dobbs said, was found alongside her hat on a garbage pile about 100 feet from the elevator and about 50 feet from the body. The boiler, in which there was no fire, was also about 100 feet from the elevator and 50 feet from the body, alongside the trail.

The notes, the witness said, were found almost together near the head, about two feet from the partition. There was no opening in the partition that he saw.

Sergeant Dobbs said that when he entered the basement he was three or four feet from the body before he saw it. The negro was leading the way, he said.

Sergeant Dobbs said the body was cold when he first saw it. He felt of the face and hands and knees. The finger joints were not stiff and could be worked back and forth easily, he said. Having had no experience with dead bodies, the witness said he could not estimate how long the girl had been dead when he found her.

NO ONE IN BUILDING, HE SAID.

Sergeant Dobbs said the negro told him no one had been in the building since he started to work at 6 o’clock Saturday night.

The girl’s body was taken from the basement out the back way by the undertaker’s. Sergeant Dobbs said, some time after daylight—about 6 o’clock Sunday morning, he thought.

Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter, was then called.

At 11:45 o’clock the negro night watchman, Newt Lee, was called to the stand by the coroner.

He said that he lives at 40 Henry street. Usually he went to his work about 6 o’clock as night watchman at the pencil factory, he said. Last Friday Mr. Frank, the superintendent, told him to come earlier, at 4, on Saturday, saying it would be a half holiday. Mr. Frank spoke to him two or three times about it during the day, said he. He appeared at the factory at 4 o’clock, accordingly, and found the street door unlocked but the double doors leading to the plant were locked. He has keys to the front and back of the factory, said the negro.

FRANK LETS LEE GO.

He went into the office and Mr. Frank came into the outer office from the inner office, rubbing his hands.

“I’m here, sir,” the negro said he remarked to his employer.

“I’m sorry, Newt, that I had you come here so soon,” the negro said Mr. Frank told him. “Go out and have some fun. Come back in about an hour and a half, but don’t stay later than the usual time”—6 o’clock.

The negro said he left and returned at 6 o’clock.

The negro said that after coming to work each evening at 6 o’clock he punched the time clock, and started on his rounds of the four floors of the factory. Those rounds usually took him half an hour, he said, exclusive of the basement. If the half hour had not quite expired when he reached the clock, sometimes he went to the basement, too, said he; otherwise he omitted the basement and resumed his round.

COULDN’T SEE INTO OFFICE.

The negro said that usually Mr. Frank called him into the office, and that it was contrary to the usual custom when Mr. Frank came out into the outer office and met him. He couldn’t see into the office, said the negro, or tell whether there was anybody else inside.

The negro said he left, going up Forsyth street to Alabama, east on Alabama to Broad, across the bridge, along Viaduct way to that Whitehall viaduct and down the street into Wall street and along that street to Central avenue, where he found a big fat man selling some sort of medicine. The man had some negroes there, eating [1 word illegible] and dancing, said Newt Lee. He stayed there until time to go back to work, and got back to the factory two or three minutes, or perhaps four minutes, before 6 o’clock. Mr. Frank was still there. He started to punch the clock. Mr. Frank told him to wait, that there had been only two or three there that day and the slip had been taken from the clock. Mr. Frank came out and the two of them put the slip back on, said the negro, and he punched the clock at 6. Mr. Frank went back into the office, said the negro, and he himself went back downstairs to close the doors. At the street door he met Mr. Gantt, formerly a bookkeeper in the office, said the negro. Mr. Gantt wanted to get in and get some old shoes that he had left there. The negro told him it was against the rules, but that if Mr. Frank, who was upstairs, said no, he would let Mr. Gantt in.

At Mr. Gantt’s request that he ask Mr. Frank, he turned from the door, and saw Mr. Frank just coming down the stairs from the office and machine room floor. Mr. Frank looked scared, said the negro, but he thought it was because he was afraid Mr. Gantt might have come there “to do him dirt,” because Frank and Gantt had quarreled and the former had discharged the bookkeeper some weeks before. Mr. Gantt stated his case to Mr. Frank. “What kind of shoes were they?” Mr. Frank asked. “Tan,” Mr. Gantt replied. “I think I saw the negroes sweeping them out this morning,” said Mr. Frank, “But I had some black ones, too,” said Gantt. “All right, Newt,” said Mr. Frank. “Take him up there and stay with him.” Mr. Frank went on out, said the negro, and he went up into the office with Mr. Gantt and got the shoes. The negro gave him some little red twine and some paper to wrap the shoes up. Mr. Gantt wanted to use the telephone, and the negro told him to go ahead. Mr. Gantt called some lady. “I know it was a lady because I heard him call her name,” said the negro. He couldn’t remember the name. Mr. Gantt told her he would be home about 9 o’clock or a little later. He talked some time, then hung up the receiver and left. The negro locked the street doors behind him, and then because Mr. Frank had told him to watch Mr. Gantt, he stood there at the glass door and watched him leave. Mr. Gantt crossed the street, passed in front of the saloon there, and went on off up the street, said the negro.

The negro said that he did not see Gantt at 4 o’clock when he first came to work. He did not watch Mr. Frank when he left, said the negro. Frank had a key to the building and could have returned while the negro and Gantt were upstairs. The negro said he did not go to the basement when he first came at 4 o’clock. He was asked if there was a rug carpet in Mr. Frank’s office, and replied no. He knew because he cleaned it every night.

Mr. Frank offered him some bananas when he was there the first time, said the negro, but he declined the fruit.

GANTT THERE HALF AN HOUR.

It took Gantt “no time at all” to find the shoes, said the negro. Gantt was in the building about half an hour. He did not know where Mr. Frank was during this time. He thought Mr. Frank walked away from the building toward Alabama. The first time he ever saw Mr. Frank, said the negro, was when he came to work there about three weeks before the crime.

After making the rounds of the building, or about 7 o’clock, he went to the basement, said the negro.

Machinery is on the second floor and on the top floor. Gantt got the shoes out of the shipping department near the clock on the second floor.

Lee said he went to the basement by way of the ladder through the trap door. A gas light always burned near the foot of the ladder. The gas was not as high as he had left it at 7 o’clock that morning. It had been turned down to about the size of the lightning bug. He received a phone message from Mr. Frank between 7 and 8 o’clock. Other members of the force had called him on previous nights occasionally, but this was the first that Mr. Frank had called him. Mr. Frank asked if everything was “all right,” and the negro replied, “So far as I know.”

BODY WAS FACE UP.

The negro said that the body was lying face up when he discovered it.

Other witnesses who came later swore it lay face down when they found it.

This contradicted the evidence of all the policemen.

He was asked the point blank question by the coroner:

“Why did you turn it over?”

“I didn’t turn it over,” said the negro.

He said he punched the clock every half hour during Saturday night.

“What did Mr. Frank say on Sunday about that clock not being right?” he was asked.

“He said it was all right,” replied the negro.

He was asked to repeat his story of how he found the body. He went down the ladder to go to the basement, and went into the toilet, leaving his lantern in front of it upon the ground.

On coming out, he saw the body of the girl lying on the ground around the corner of the partition. It looked very vague, and he thought somebody had put something there to frighten him. He found the body lying on its back with the head turned toward Madison avenue (exactly the reverse of the position the officers found it in). He saw blood on the face and knew by the straight hair that it was the body of a white woman.

“It scared me, that body there,” said the negro, “and I called up the station house.”

“How did you know the number?” asked the coroner.

Mr. Frank had given it to him, said the negro, for use in case of fire or anything unusual. “He gave me his own number, too, to call him up in case I wanted him.”

The coroner asked him if he touched the body when he found it.

He said, “No, sir, I did not.”

He did not go back to the basement until the police came.

He went through the machine room in which the girl was supposed to have been attacked, every 15 minutes, in making his rounds of the building. He had to pass through it, he said, on his rounds.

PUNCHED CLOCK REGULARLY.

In answer to a question, the negro said that Mr. Frank and Mr. Darley told him that he had punched the clock regularly. He thought that was on Sunday after he had been arrested, said the negro.

Answering another question, the negro said that he did not know when it was that he told the police of Mr. Frank having let him off, Saturday afternoon, or of Mr. Frank having telephoned to him later.

Answering another direct question, the negro said that when he returned with the police the body was “just the same” as when he first saw it.

The negro admitted that he said over the telephone that the body was that of a white woman. His lantern had been cleaned Friday, he said, and was in fairly good condition. He had never seen the dead girl before he found her body. The girls employed in the factory always left before he came to work, and he left before they came back. The factory work stopped each day at 5:30 o’clock, and he came on duty at 6 o’clock. He had seen the back door open in the daytime, he said, and he thought the fireman—a negro named Knollys—had a key to it.

Policeman Anderson corroborated the negro’s statement about the gas jet being a very dim light.

GIRL AND MAN NEAR FACTORY.

J. G. Spier, of Cartersville, in Atlanta Saturday, testified that he walked from the Kimball house down Forsyth street to the Terminal station with a friend Saturday afternoon and reached the Terminal station at exactly 3:50 o’clock. When he went by the National Pencil company’s place, on his way back from the station, he saw a girl apparently about seventeen years of age and a white man apparently about twenty-five years of age, and both seemed slightly excited. The girl was nervous, and was twisting her hands, and he thought the man had been drinking. They were standing near the street door of the factory. He went on down to Five Points, he said, and later went back by the Western Union office on Forsyth street, and at about twenty minutes to 5 o’clock he passed the man and the girl again. The girl was standing right by the door of the pencil factory. He saw the same girl Sunday morning at Bloomfield’s undertaking establishment. There was no doubt in his mind that it was the same girl, despite the disfigured and swollen features of the corpse. He couldn’t be sure about the man. A man pointed out to him by an officer as “Mr. Frank” had the same “outline” as the man he saw on Forsyth street. This man was pointed out to him on Sunday morning. About 8:30 o’clock he went to the factory where the detectives were making their investigation. We went there with a policeman, to whom he had told the story of the excited couple he had seen. He was on a Fair street car reading a newspaper extra, and got off the car and talked to an officer. He could not describe the complexion of the man whom he saw with the girl. He, Spier, is five feet and eleven inches in height, he said, and he thought the man with the girl would come about to his shoulder. He could not identify the clothing which had been worn by Mary Phagan, on the table. As well as he remembered, the girl had on a light cloak. He did not notice whether she wore a hat or not. He thought her hair was dark. He was in Atlanta on personal business, he said.

The Inquest adjourned at the conclusion of Mr. Spier’s testimony, until 2:15 o’clock.

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Atlanta Journal, April 30th 1913, “Negro Watchman Tells Story of Finding Girl’s Body and Questions Fail to Shake Him,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

At the top is a photograph of writing done by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman after his arrest. At the bottom is a photograph of two lines of a note found beside the body of Mary Phagan in the pencil factory cellar. Three handwriting experts—Frank M. Berry, assistant cashier of the Fourth National bank; Andrew M. Bergstrom, assistant cashier of the Third National bank and Pope O. Driver, chief bookkeeper and head of mail departments, of the American National bank, unhesitatingly declare that the same hand penned them both. Detectives are satisfied that Lee knows all about the killing of the girl. The only question in their minds is whether he is alone involved.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Frank M. Berry, of the Fourth National Bank, Andrew M. Bergstrom of Third National, and Pope C. Driver, of the American National, Examined Notes at Journal’s Request And Found Same Person Wrote Both

ALL THREE ARE EXPERTS AND MADE MICROSCOPICAL EXAMINATIONS

Their Investigation Shows He Wrote Both Notes and Seems to Prove Conclusively That Either the Negro Committed the Crime or Knows Who the Guilty Party Is

Through its own investigations The Atlanta Journal has proven conclusively that Newt Lee, the negro night watchman for the National Pencil company, either himself mistreated and murdered pretty Mary Phagan, or that he knows who committed the crime and is assisting the perpetrator to conceal his identity.

Locked in this negro’s breast is the key to the murder mystery, which has shocked the entire south.

Three handwriting experts who Tuesday compared the notes found near the girl’s body in the factory basement with notes written by Lee after his arrest and at the instigation of the city detectives are positive that the same hand penned them all.

The experts who made a microscopical examination of these notes and who are unanimous in declaring that the same person was the author of them all are:

FRANK M. BERRY, assistant cashier of the Fourth National Bank.

ANDREW M. BERGSTROM, assistant cashier of the Third National bank.

POPE O. DRIVER, chief bookkeeper and head of the mail department of the American National bank.

ALL AGREE THAT NEGRO WROTE BOTH.

These men have for years made a study of handwriting and they turn their knowledge to account in detecting all manner of forgeries. In examining the notes submitted to them Tuesday they employed powerful magnifying glasses and minutely analyzed the slant of the writing, the shape and size of the letters, the peculiarities of spelling, the method of expression, and the punctuation.

Two notes were found nearby the corpse of the mutilated girl. One of these, written on a yellow scratch pad, read as follows:

“Mam that negro fire down here did this I went to get water and he push me down thro hole a long tall negro black that hoo it woke long sleam tall negro I wright while play with me.”

The second note was written on a coarse-fibred pencil tablet, such as is used by school children. This note read:

“he said he wood love me (land dab n?) play like nigh witch did it but that long tall black negro did boy his slef.”

Shortly after Lee was arrested Chief of Detectives N. A. Lanford caused him to write the last line of the second note, dictating it to him word by word.

COULDN’T DISGUISE HANDWRITING.

Although the negro was very nervous and very naturally sought to disguise his handwriting he was unable to do so. With the exception of the use of four capital letters in the note written at police headquarters and the insertion of an extra e in the word negro this note was identical with the last two lines in the note found in the basement of the pencil factory.

The experts agreed that the size and slant of the writing was the same, that the mode of expression was identical, that there were characteristic peculiarities in the formation of the o’s, y’s, g’s, t’s, b’s, k’s, n’s and other letters used in the two notes.

In both the negro writes boy for by and slef for self. These and a number of other similarities convinced the experts that Lee wrote the notes found beside the dead girl.

MARY PHAGAN DID NOT WRITE THEM.

They examined the handwriting of Mary Phagan and positively declared that she could not have written these notes, even while delirious and suffering great pain. She wrote smoothly, used good grammar, capitalized, punctuated and spelled properly, and it is pointed out that under no circumstances would she have lapsed into an illiterate style of writing.

It is plain that the notes found in the factory cellar were written by an ignorant and illiterate person. It is also plain that the person who wrote them sought to cast suspicion upon the fireman at the factory; and that they were very particular to describe the man which they alleged to have committed the crime, for in the same sentence of one of them the perpetrator is described as a long, tall, black negro.

The other refers to the intention of the perpetrator to fix the crime on the night watchman. It is believed that Lee deliberately described another negro and that he endeavored to divert suspicion from himself by writing into one of the notes that the guilty man would “play like the nigh witch did it.”

Neither of these notes could have been written by Mary Phagan, even though she were still alive when dragged into the cellar, for the cellar was dark as pitch night. And it is not to be supposed that while in a dying condition she would have found it convenient to have obtained a pencil and two different kinds of tablet paper. Further than this she would not have written two notes.

The detectives are satisfied that Lee wrote both notes, but are of the opinion that he wrote them at different times. After writing the first he evidently thought of something else which he believed would divert suspicion from himself and then wrote the second.

Only one question now puzzles the detectives—

Did Lee murder the girl himself or did he undertake to dispose of the girl’s body and to shield some one else?

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Atlanta Journal, April 29th 1913, “Three Handwriting Experts Say Negro Wrote the Two Notes Found by Body of Girl,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)